


History Repeating

by imagined_melody



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 03:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8084599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagined_melody/pseuds/imagined_melody
Summary: Yevgeny (now going by Luke) Milkovich decides, at the age of 18, that he wants to join the military. Certain past events make this news hard for Ian and Mickey to handle. (Future fic in which Ian and Mickey are back together and have been raising Yevgeny as co-parents.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> It has been a year since I've posted a fic. Good Lord. I actually started writing this back in 2013, before Yevgeny was born as a character on _Shameless_ and all of the madness of the last few seasons ensued. Last week I found the file, added about 1500 words to what I'd already written, and found that I actually had a completed fic to post. Here's to not waiting a whole year to write the next one!
> 
> I skimmed over a lot of the details of Ian and Mickey's timeline here; just assume Mickey got out of jail early (I wrote "after 3 years" into here), Ian's bipolar disorder is somehow managed for the most part, and they reunited years before the events of the fic and have been raising Mickey's son together. (I also decided that Yevgeny's middle name was Lukas, and that he now goes by "Luke," the short form of that, because I figured that- like a lot of kids- he would rebel against having an unusual name, especially if people had trouble pronouncing or spelling it. That's where the name change comes from here.)

It hadn’t surprised either of his dads when Luke Milkovich told them, at the age of 13, that he wanted to enroll in ROTC. He might be Mickey’s biological son (or at least his son by former marriage—the “biological” part was a question none of them had bothered to get a definite answer for), but he had always shared Ian’s gentle demeanor and fierce desire to stand up for a cause that mattered. Mickey had taught him to defend himself like a South Side kid, of course: taken him out to the backyard and shown him how to fight hard and dirty so that no one would mess with him. But even as a kid, Luke loved the rare moments when Ian led him through a training exercise he’d picked up in ROTC or boot camp. Luke wasn’t as scrappy as the rest of the Milkoviches; if he was going to be aggressive, he preferred to do it in a disciplined way. That, Mickey thought, was all Gallagher.

Sometimes Mickey didn’t know how the combination of his genes and Svetlana’s could possibly have produced a kid like Luke. He was precocious, all lithe limbs and sharp intellect, and he approached everything with such single-minded focus that it was hard to get him out of his own head sometimes. He’d been curious to the point of near-disaster as a child, but passionate in a way that Mickey wasn’t sure _he_ had ever been. Luke was a kid who _loved_ things, who cared about them deeply and wasn’t afraid to enthusiastically express that love. And that was another bit of Ian’s personality lurking in there, too. 

Luke didn’t have fleeting interests; he was committed by nature, and when he liked something or decided to take a certain path, he threw all of himself in and saw it through. So they knew the ROTC thing wasn’t just a joke—he would start it in the ninth grade, and master it, and likely stick with it until he graduated.

What came after that, though, _was_ a surprise.

\---

Mickey was at the Alibi on a slow evening near the end of May when a tall man in uniform with imposing posture came in and settled on one of the stools next to him. There was a time, back when Ian was in all kinds of trouble with the military, when such a visit would have made Mickey’s heart race in panic. Now, though, he recognized the person before him as Randy Mitchell, Luke’s ROTC teacher.

“Randy,” he said easily, his defenses lowering at the sight of a familiar face as he took another gulp of his beer.

“Mr. Milkovich,” Randy replied, the answer a sly nod to the formal title he used to address Mickey when they were at school functions. They exchanged gruff pleasantries, and then once Randy was settled with a beer, he continued, “Luke’s finally made a decision, I hear! Took him long enough, but I guess it’s good he wanted to be sure.”

“About college?” Mickey asked. “Naw, man, he ain’t too sure about that. Think he’s just gonna stay here for a while and work, save up money for a couple years. Maybe figure out if there’s anything he even wants to go to college _for_.”

Randy’s frown was quizzical. “No, I mean about the army. Luke told me today he’d decided to join up. He hasn’t said anything about this to you?”

Something in Mickey felt like ice, freezing slowly. “The army?” he repeated. “He wants to join up?” Fleetingly he wondered if Luke had been talking to Ian about this, if the two of them had been discussing this possibility without wanting him to know. 

“Right,” Randy said. “I’m always telling the kids about what the military has to offer, and what it takes to make it there. Luke was always interested, but he didn’t seem to be paying no mind to the possibility of serving. It was just a couple weeks ago he seemed to be considering it. Today he told me he’d decided he wanted to enlist.” He looked at Mickey. “Your partner was a military man, right?”

“Uh…” Mickey, still struggling with this dizzying turn of events, could hardly consider how to frame Ian’s military experience. “Kind of. Wasn’t for him.” That was only sort of true, but explaining any further wouldn’t do Ian’s past character any favors, and Mickey wanted to avoid that.

Randy clapped him on the shoulder. “Fair enough, it’s not for everyone. Luke’s born for it, though.” Randy took another swig of his beer, looked over his shoulder, and said, “Gotta go join the wife over there. Take care, man.”

Mickey managed a faint goodbye. He looked down. His hands were shaking slightly; he wasn’t sure why. Fumbling, he took out his phone and texted a single word to Ian: _call_. It wasn’t their usual “emergency” signal, so if Ian got it while he was busy on shift he wouldn’t go out of his way to check in, but Mickey trusted he would recognize the urgency in it and call back when he could.

His phone buzzed 40 minutes later, after he’d left and gone home. Mickey picked up and before Ian could get out so much as a “hey,” he said, “Has Luke said anything about enlisting to you?”

Ian was silent for what seemed like an eternity, though it was only a single dumbfounded second. Then his reply came, as perplexed and indignant as Mickey’s own reaction. “About _what_?”

“About leaving for the fucking army, Gallagher.” Mickey’s voice, to anyone else, would sound pissed off. But Ian knew him better than anyone, and Mickey knew his partner would hear what was underneath—would recognize the echo of their shared experience with this moment, the way it mirrored a long-faded hurt in their own relationship. “He wants to join up.” His voice cracked slightly on the last couple syllables of that sentence, so he abandoned gruffness and bravado and allowed the vulnerability beneath it to come through. “ _Ian_.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Ian said, his voice gentle, a rare endearment (that Mickey would usually scoff at, but not now, God, _not now_ ) slipping through. “My shift’s over. I’m coming home.”

Mickey stayed on the couch, palms pressed against his eyes and fighting back the nagging feeling that he was overreacting by feeling this upset, until Ian came through the door. The tight clench of panic only eased when Ian knelt in front of him and pulled his hands away from his face, met his gaze, and said, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. This is gonna be okay.”

Ian had made promises before that he hadn’t kept, but not about this. Mickey stared into his calm, open expression and finally began to believe him.

\---

“Hey, uh, what was up with Dad tonight?”

Startling at the voice behind him, Ian turned from the sink to see Luke leaning against the wall by the refrigerator, his arms crossed loosely against his chest. He frowned at the kid. “Huh?”

Luke pulled idly at a dangling string at the edge of his pajama shirt. “Is Dad mad at me or something? I know me wanting to go off to the army is big news, but I kind of thought he’d be, you know, happier for me. Is he angry I didn’t tell him first?”

Ian replaced the dish towel on the rack with a sigh. Their discussion about this at dinner had been tense; he wasn’t surprised it had left Luke nervous. “No, kid, he isn’t mad at you,” he told Luke, scrubbing a hand across his face tiredly. “If anything, I think he’s more pissed at me right now.”

Luke frowned. “Is this some kind of relationship thing I’m not gonna understand?”

Ian sat down at the table heavily, and Luke took that as a sign for him to sit too. Once they were both settled, Ian tried to explain. “When I left for the army, things were complicated between me and your dad.”

“Because he married my mom?” Luke guessed.

Ian smiled tightly. “Yeah, that was pretty much it,” he said, deciding the kid didn’t need to know the rest of _that_ story. He continued, “He didn’t want me to leave, but I was angry about him getting married. I didn’t join up when I did because it was the right time. I did it because I wanted to hurt him.”

When he looked up, Luke was staring a little. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s not something we really wanted you to know,” Ian admitted, and he looked guilty enough that Luke’s anger faded a little. “Anyway, the day before I shipped out, I came over to see your aunt Mandy. It was the first time I’d seen your dad since the wedding. I told him I was leaving the next morning, for four years. Pretty sure I broke his heart that day.”

“I don’t believe it,” Luke said again. He looked wounded, a sort of contained righteous hurt, and Ian felt his stomach twist at being the target of it. “You joined the military and went off someplace to maybe get killed, just to _piss off my dad_? Shit, how bad were things between you two?!”

Ian made eye contact and held it despite the fury in Luke’s eyes. “Worse than you will ever know, kid,” he said honestly. “That’s why I’m telling you this. Your dad’s not mad at you right now. He’s _still_ upset with me, and this is painful for him because it reminds him of what I did. He’s gonna have a hard time being happy for you because I screwed him up. But you gotta know that he’s really, really proud of you, okay?” 

They stared each other down for several long seconds. Then Ian saw Luke’s anger slowly begin to dissipate. For all of the boy’s Ian-like attributes, he was so like his father when he was upset: his default mode was to try and intimidate whoever he was mad at, but if you held firm and didn’t give him any ground, he would back down. Finally, his voice much more vulnerable, he asked, “He’s not gonna hate me for going away?”

Ian’s heart constricted at the question. He bit his lip against it. “No, Luke,” he answered. “He’s not gonna hate you. He never could.” He sighed. “In a way, he’s mad at the army too. He thinks going to boot camp screwed me up, gave me all the mental issues I had later on.”

Luke studied him. “Did it?” He looked like he was nervous about Ian’s response, but Luke had never been able to refrain from asking a question he wanted to know the answer to. He was far too inquisitive for that.

“Of course not,” Ian replied. “That shit runs in my family; you know that. Your grandma Monica had it too. Although,” he hesitated, and then admitted grudgingly, “it might have been what caused it to come out in me. You don’t have to worry about that. But it won’t stop your dad from blaming the army for everything I did to him after I came home.” Ian looked Luke in the eyes again. “You know I’m always honest with you, right?” At Luke’s nod, he said, “Your dad didn’t have an easy life because of me. It’s good now, but it wasn’t always. And there are two things that happened right before the bad stuff started. One is between him and your mom. The other was the army. That’s why he’s freaked out now.”

Luke still looked pained, and for a moment neither of them did anything but share a heavy silence, staring at the table where they sat. Then Luke said, “I gotta—is Dad outside? Can I—“ 

“He’s out there,” Ian said, gesturing to the front stoop. “Just…go easy on him, OK? He’s trying.”

Sure enough, Mickey’s hunched form could be seen sitting on their doorstep when Luke opened the door a crack, a plume of smoke drifting up from where he was obscured by shadow. He had a _don’t come near me_ set to his body, and for a moment Luke considered heeding it. But he wasn’t good at ignoring things that bothered him, so before long he’d stepped out into the warm night and sat down next to his dad. “Ian told me,” he informed him, then added off his father’s questioning look, “about why you’re not happy I’m joining the military.”

Mickey only made a small snort at first, pausing to take a long drag of his cigarette. “Figures he wouldn’t keep his mouth shut.” There was bitterness there, but no hurt or betrayal or anything other than resignation. He didn’t sound like he had the energy for more.

Luke scrutinized him, in the way only a teenager can. “Why didn’t you kick him to the curb, after what he did to you?”

“Oh, what, so you hate Ian now?” Mickey said, annoyed, like Luke had hit a nerve. “Thought we were past the part where you try and make one of us the bad guy.”

Luke bit his lip. Navigating around his dad’s edginess could be like an art form at times. Luckily, he and Ian were both experts at it. “No,” he said finally. “Ian’s been one of us since I was little; I love him. He’s my dad too. But what he did to you was really shitty. I just…why’d you take him back, Dad?”

Mickey did nothing except stare steadfastly forward, occasionally bringing the cigarette up to his lips to take a drag. Luke began to give up hope on getting an answer. His dad had never been especially good at expressing himself in words, so to ask him to explain his feelings for Ian, complex as they were, was difficult to the point of being unrealistic. But after a minute, letting out a breath that was mostly smoke, he admitted, “Didn’t know if I wanted to. But he fucked up, and he was still fucking up, and so was I. They—“

“They canceled each other out,” said a soft voice, and Luke turned to see Ian at the door behind them, leaning against the threshold. He’d snuck out so quietly that neither one of them had heard his approach. Mickey took another long drag of his cigarette, but Luke thought he saw his eyes soften, as well as the sadness creep into them more visibly. “I thought Mickey made a big mistake getting married, and I was mad at him, even though I knew he had to do it. Thought he was throwing his life away. So I threw away mine back.” His smile was a tight grimace. “By the time we got back together for real, we both had nothing. So we started again.”

“Didn’t have nothing,” Mickey said, and when they looked at him he cut his eyes to Luke. 

Ian smiled more genuinely and reached out to ruffle Luke’s hair. “OK, not _nothing_ ,” he agreed. “One big thing left. And we decided to share it.”

Luke stared back and forth between them, dumbfounded. “Only you two,” he said, “would show each other you cared by screwing up your whole lives for one another.”

Ian chuckled. “No kidding. That a Gallagher trait, Mick, or a Milkovich one?”

“Fuck, both,” Mickey sighed, quiet but less tense. “You’re screwed, kid.”

All three of them laughed then, genuine. Ian came to sit down behind Mickey, leaning over to steal his cigarette—Mickey made a small noise of protest but didn’t actually move to stop him—and they watched the neighborhood around them until it got too dark to see clearly. 

\---

The whole extended family came to graduation—Ian and Mickey and Svetlana, of course, plus all the Gallaghers (it was easy to forget how many of them there were, until they were all in one place) and Mandy, and some of Mickey’s brothers. They took up a whole row on the bleachers in the school gym, and when the announcer called “Yevgeny Lukas Milkovich” to walk across the stage, they ignored the _please hold your applause till the end_ rule and cheered loud enough that the people sitting nearby glared at them. Afterward, Ian was smiling so wide that his grin seemed bigger than his face. Mickey knew he wasn’t showing it as much, knew he probably looked as emotionally constipated as he felt. But the surge of pride when his son ran over to them, tall and grown-up in his cap and gown, was tempered by a bad taste in his mouth. Because Mickey knew what was coming, and it was getting too close to escape.

He started drinking two days before Luke’s departure date. Ian came home from work at six o’clock to find Mickey at the kitchen table, already most of the way through his third beer, and he knew exactly what it meant. Mickey didn’t look up from where his eyes were glassily fixed on a groove worn into the table, but he could hear Ian’s small sigh from the doorway. 

He didn’t know what he expected Ian’s reaction to be, but he definitely wasn’t prepared for the man to come over and simply lean down to kiss the top of his head. Then he heard Ian’s voice, and though his tone was kind, there was an edge to it that told Mickey he’d damn well better be listening. “You can drink all you want, if that’s what you gotta do to get through this,” he said low into Mickey’s ear. “But promise me one thing, Mick. Promise me you’ll be stone-cold sober the day Luke leaves. Don’t you dare fucking push that kid away.” 

Mickey couldn’t bring himself to answer-- just took another swig of the dark liquid, grimacing slightly as it went down and failed to ease the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ian didn’t wait around for a response; nearly twenty years together meant he knew Mickey would bear the advice in mind. His lack of refusal was as good as an actual promise would be from anyone else.

\---

Mickey kept the agreement he had implicitly made with Ian. On the day Luke was due to leave, he was up and dressed and sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee before either Luke or Ian had even stirred. He looked exhausted from more than just a hangover, but he didn’t smell like alcohol at all, despite the fact that he’d been drinking like a fish for the last couple days. Ian doubted Mickey had gotten any sleep the night before.

They drove Luke to the recruitment center together. The trip was unusually quiet; words would have been too crowded around the heaviness that already filled the car. Luke’s face was set with nerves, his body straight and stiff in his army uniform. He looked so much like Ian that Mickey wanted to cry.

There wasn’t much time once they got there, which was both a blessing and a knife in the gut. Luke pulled his gear out of the trunk, and did a brief check to be sure everything was there. Then he turned to Ian, who immediately pulled him into a tight hug. Without letting him go, he muttered into the boy’s ear, just low enough so that Mickey wouldn’t hear him, “Take care of yourself over there, you hear? If you don’t come home, it will literally destroy your dad. And I’m not ready to lose him just yet.” Luke made a choked-off sound and nodded into the crook of Ian’s neck, and they held each other fiercely for another moment before Ian let him go, stepping back with watery eyes.

Luke looked over to Mickey, and stepped forward. “Dad,” he said, the word little more than a whisper.

Where he’d felt paralyzed a second before, now Mickey couldn’t stop his forward momentum. He stepped right into the kid’s space; not aggressive, just purposeful. His hands came up to grab either side of Luke’s head, as though to make sure he had his son’s full attention. His voice, when he managed to speak, was tight with desperation. “The last time this happened to me, I fucked it up, and I didn’t say something I should’ve said. I’m not gonna do that again.” He sighed, shakily, and tightened his fingers on Luke’s face. “I love you, son. I don’t want you to leave, but I know you’re gonna. Just…just come home, okay?”

He heard a small shocked sound behind him, and knew that Ian had heard what he’d said. But he couldn’t look away from Luke, who was staring at him with an expression like he’d been sucker-punched. “Okay,” he finally said, and then he had leaned in and fallen into Mickey’s arms, whispering, “I love you too, Dad.” Mickey clung on, didn’t want to let him go, but finally they stepped back so Luke could breathe deep and wipe his eyes dry. Then he turned, his gear slung over his shoulder, and headed for the bus where the new recruits were being checked in. 

It was like Mickey’s hearing had whited out. The air seemed to leave him in a rush, and all he could think of was Luke—Luke as this little baby, Luke getting into trouble as a kid, the time he’d had to go to the emergency room because he’d fallen and broken his leg, the way he’d grown into this teenager, and then this _man_. And somewhere in there was Ian too, Ian standing over his bed and saying _I want the gun, Mickey_ , challenging him and fucking him and _knowing_ him for three years, then leaving for the fucking army and coming back and leaving him again and finally raising this kid with him. It all flashed through his head, and he felt like he was gonna be sick, because he couldn’t do this, he _couldn’t_ , it was gonna kill him for sure.

He turned around and Ian was there, behind him, looking at him with wet eyes and wet cheeks like he was seeing Mickey for the first time. He came and rested his hand on the join of Mickey’s neck and shoulder, and normally Mickey would squirm away from that kind of public affection, but this time all he could do was reach out and link their free hands together, anchoring him against his body. Ian could feel Mickey’s full body shuddering with the effort not to fall apart. The only thing they said to one another, as they watched their son step on a bus to go off and become a soldier, was two short words that Ian whispered into Mickey’s neck just as the bus drove away. _I’m here._

Mickey’s fingers tightened on his, a silent answer. _I know._

\---

Ian let Mickey drive home, despite his better judgment; normally Ian wouldn’t want his boyfriend to drive when he was clearly edgy, but Mickey vibrated with the need to be in control of _something_ , so he took the risk of allowing him behind the wheel. They made it home without incident, and by the time they pulled in to their spot on the street, Mickey was visibly winding down. It was only mid-morning, but the day had already taken a lot out of both of them. As Ian opened the door, he guided Mickey in with a light hand on his lower back, and felt him move forward almost automatically. Ian could relate; he too felt like he was on autopilot.

Mickey said very little when they got inside. He fell into bed in minutes, only moving when Ian sat down beside him and handed him his pajamas to put on, so he would be comfortable. He looked defeated, and while Ian wished he could snap him out of it, he knew there was nothing he could do. Mickey’s reaction to situations that upset him was to become closed-off and absent, and years of dealing with him had taught Ian that it was best to let him come around in his own time. Fighting Mickey’s natural inclinations would only cause him to withdraw more, and make him angry at Ian on top of it.

He still seemed shell-shocked when Ian came to join him in bed that night, hours later. Ian climbed in next to him, pulled the covers around them both, and curled in. His arms wrapped around Mickey’s waist and gathered the man close. At first there was no response. Then he felt Mickey shiver, heard a shaking in his breathing—and although his face stayed dry and his eyelids did no more than flutter, it was clear in his body language that he was grieving. Ian breathed into the skin on the back of Mickey’s neck. He knew this was why Mickey had wanted to be alone, had lain here all day without getting up unless it was necessary. Today, he had let go of one of the most important things in his life. He needed time to mourn the loss of it.

They slept in the next morning. Both had the weekend off, using carefully saved up vacation days to recover from the shock of sending their only son away to the army. Mickey was still vacant the next morning, listless but not quite as motionless as the day before. Ian fixed himself breakfast, than made some toast and coffee for Mickey and brought them into the bedroom. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he leaned over the man’s sprawled form to gust a kiss over his cheek. The moment reminded him painfully of the time he’d sat with his mother when she was crippled by depression, and his heart wrenched wildly. 

He wasn’t sure if Mickey felt the surge of his heartbeat against his back, or if he looked up in time to see the furrow of Ian’s brow before he managed a more impassive expression. But Mickey frowned and turned over to face him, letting his nose brush against Ian’s knee in a silent gesture of comfort. It was the best that Mickey, already fragile and drained, could offer—but it was more than enough. Ian smoothed a hand over the prone man’s dark hair until he closed his eyes again, face settling into some semblance of relaxation.

Ian didn’t force him to eat or drink; he laid the breakfast items on the table beside the bed and left the room, to spend the morning watching television on the couch. Mickey hadn’t moved when he came back to check on him—Ian had heard him pacing at one point, but even that had stopped in a few minutes—but the coffee cup was empty and the only food left was a couple of crumbs. Ian took that as a good sign.

Fiona called in the afternoon. “How’s Mickey?” she asked.

Ian sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before realizing what a Mickey-like gesture that was. “He’s upset,” he said tiredly, settling back on the couch. “I think he feels alone. I dunno, Fi, he hasn’t talked to me.”

“Come over for dinner,” she offered, and Ian smiled a little at her motherliness. “Both of you. You shouldn’t have to deal with this by yourselves.”

“I don’t think Mickey’s up to it,” Ian confessed, thinking of the man lying still in bed in the other room. If he couldn’t manage to leave their bedroom, he certainly wouldn’t do well in a house full of noisy Gallaghers, no matter how sympathetic they all might be. “We’ll let you know when we’re ready, OK?”

“OK,” Fiona agreed softly. “How’re you, Ian? You holding up?”

He had been so focused on Mickey’s feelings through all this that Ian had hardly been aware of his own response. “It was weird,” he said after a moment. “Seeing him off, getting on that bus like I did…it almost felt like it wasn’t really happening, you know? It was more like I was reliving a memory, not like it was happening to someone else.” He paused and then added, “To my son.”

“Your son,” Fiona echoed, her voice conveying how important that statement was. Ian and Mickey, despite almost twenty on-and-off years of living together and co-parenting and being in a relationship, rarely referred to Luke as _their_ son, much less as _Ian’s_ son. It got awkward at things like parent-teacher meetings; though Ian had all of the responsibilities of a parent, and the Gallaghers accepted Luke as one of their own, there was nothing official to cement that, and so Ian was often set apart from the bond between the man and the boy he lived with. After all this time, though, Luke was as much Ian’s son as Mickey’s, and Ian thought he was finally realizing that.

When he and Fiona hung up, Ian went to the closed door of their room. He thought about going in—maybe curling into bed and lying there with Mickey, or seeing if he was ready to talk. But he didn’t feel like dealing with the fact that his partner might still not be responsive. So he slid to the floor outside the door and sat next to it, for long enough that the light began to dim—sat and listened for even the slightest sounds of movement, clinging to them as indications that things were going to be all right. He remembered countless nights when he’d fought with the deep lows of his own depression, and had been aware of Mickey’s presence just outside the door, waiting and worrying. _This is what it felt like for him_ , he realized. The revelation, painful as it was, only made him even more aware of Mickey’s strength. He must have borne him a lot of love, to stay so close when Ian must have seemed so far away.

He slept on the couch that night. It wasn’t out of anger at Mickey; he couldn’t help being paralyzed by this, and Ian knew that. He’d left some food for Mickey late in the evening, and then fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of some late-night programming. When he opened his eyes again it was morning, and he hadn’t been to bed in between.

He shifted, wincing at the cramp in his neck from his awkward sleeping position, and began to stretch out his legs, when his foot brushed against something warm and solid. Confused, he blinked open his eyes. Sitting just to his left, looking morose but calm and steady, was Mickey. Ian pushed his body all the way up until he was sitting. “Hey,” he said quietly, surprised by how tired his voice sounded.

Mickey looked at him. “Hey,” he said back. His fingers tapped idly on Ian’s ankle. Even after all this time, such easy, absent-minded gestures of affection and touch still felt like a rare and thrilling thing. Mickey had something to say, or something he wanted; it was just a matter of waiting for him to be ready to say it.

“Went into Luke’s room a minute ago,” he finally said, in a gruff voice that somehow still managed to betray all the emotion he was feeling. “Felt like he should’ve been in there.”

“He’ll be back,” Ian replied softly, leaning forward so his body was angled close to Mickey’s. “It’s just boot camp, Mick. They’re not sending him overseas or anything.”

Mickey sighed. “Fuck, man, I know that,” he said heavily, “but they’re gonna, one day. And—“ he choked on the next words, stopped mid-sentence, but Ian knew exactly what he was going to say.

“And he’s your boy. I know.” Slowly, knowing Mickey was touchy about affection even after all this time, he reached out and let his fingers gently land on the back of Mickey’s clenched hand. Mickey sighed and sat motionless for a second, then loosened his fist just enough so that Ian could slot their fingers together. 

“There was a time I hated that kid.” Ian squeezed his hand tighter at Mickey’s brutal words. The floodgates were opening, he knew. Mickey was finally ready to talk. “When Svetlana first had him I hated him. Didn’t want anything to do with him.”

“Then I took him,” Ian said quietly, supplying the next step in the chronology. “Anything could’ve happened to him while he was with me. I wasn’t in my right mind back then.”

“I went to prison,” Mickey said. “I could’ve been in prison a lot longer than I was.” The charges had been dropped after three years; Mickey’s original sentence had been for fifteen. He’d have missed Luke’s whole childhood.

“I wasn’t there for him, for either of you. For years,” Ian added. 

“Fuck,” Mickey said brokenly. “We go through all that just for him to go and get shot up in some desert shithole?”

Ian leaned in and breathed in the familiar scent of Mickey’s skin, ventured to brush his lips against Mickey’s neck. “I don’t know,” he finally said, and he knew Mickey could hear his own fears lurking underneath that admission. After a moment, he said, “You know what I do know?” Mickey was silent, but listening. “I know we’re a couple of gay-ass South Side boys that have survived all the shit that’s come our way so far. I know we’ve made it through all the fucked-up things we did to each other. And I know that Luke is a smarter kid than either of us ever was. If you ask me, that means he’s probably gonna be okay.”

“He damn well better be,” Mickey murmured. It was hard to believe, now, that at one point Mickey had not felt himself capable of being a father. His love for Luke had been hard to come by and was even now a rocky and unpredictable thing, but once gained, it was fierce and true. He may have been a reluctant parent, but he was twenty times better than his own father—than _either_ of their own fathers—ever was.

“Yeah,” Ian whispered with naked sincerity, before letting his tone shift to a more jovial one as he got up to leave the room. “Come on. We’re empty nesters now, right? Doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to do crazy shit? Take up gardening, or get our yoga instructor’s license, or start going on cruises?”

Mickey’s snorted “Fuck off” was the most normal he’d sounded all week.


End file.
